Monday, September 30, 2013

I don’t care about a government shutdown. Why should I?

A prolonged government shutdown — followed by a potential default on the federal debt — would have economic ripple effects far beyond Washington, upending financial markets, sending the unemployment rate higher and slowing already tepid growth, according to a wide range of economists.

A shutdown of a few days might do little damage, but economists, lawmakers and analysts are increasingly bracing for a shutdown that could last a week or more, given the distance between Republicans and Democrats. Such an outcome would suck money out of the economy and spread anxiety among consumers and businesses in a way that is likely to hold back economic activity.

There are other risks, too. On Oct. 17, the Treasury is scheduled to ask investors for $120 billion in loans. But if investors grow nervous about whether the United States will be able to pay them back, they are likely to demand higher interest rates, which would cause rates to spike throughout the financial system, leading to more expensive mortgages, auto loans and credit card bills.

Doubt could grow about the safety of parking money in U.S. bonds, the linchpin of the global financial system.

“It’s corrosive on the economy,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. A lengthy shutdown followed by a default would be “the nightmare of the recession all over again.”

Even if lawmakers find a way out of a shutdown or a default, this fall’s brinkmanship — the fourth such crisis in two years — is likely to have negative effects on the economy. With so much uncertainty in Washington, economists say that businesses, flush with cash, have been reluctant to invest and hire.

“The simple story is it creates a tremendous amount of uncertainty,” said Ethan Harris, a top economist with Bank of America. “One of the unfortunate side effects of the brinksmanship is a message to business leaders to delay long-term commitments and wait to see whether something really bad happens.”

The stock market, as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, was down four of five days last week, and the dollar also fell. More relevant, the cost of a type of insurance that investors use to protect themselves against default in U.S. government bonds has rocketed higher in recent days, suggesting the chances of default are increasing.

Business interest groups, usually aligned with the Republicans, have urged the GOP to abandon their demand for policy concessions, such as delaying President Obama’s signature health-care law, in exchange for funding the government and raising the debt limit.

“It is not in the best interest of the employers, employees or the American people to risk a government shutdown that will be economically disruptive and create even more uncertainties for the U.S. economy,” the nation’s leading corporate lobbying groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, wrote Friday in a letter to Congress.

Much of the government will close Tuesday without action by Congress. If the shutdown lasts more than a few days, it would affect the economy in numerous ways, most clearly by cutting spending on contracts and salaries.

But there are likely to be a wide range of indirect effects as well, because government operations provide the launching point for key activities driving economic growth, according to independent economists.

For example, the closure of national parks and museums may hurt hotels, restaurants and the people who work for them. The process of getting approval for a home loan could take much more time, slowing a housing recovery that is one of the few bright spots in the economy.

Headlines about dysfunction in Washington could also sow consumer and business fears even in parts of the economy not directly affected by a shutdown, leading individuals and businesses to cut back on spending and investment.

Economists estimate that the cumulative effect of a prolonged shutdown could trim economic growth in the final three months of the year by up to 1.4 percentage points. Under that scenario, the economy would hardly expand at all — at a time that is usually one of the most important economic periods of the year.

“That would mean a hit to employment and income as we approach the critical holiday season,” economist Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial wrote in a recent analysis.

But for all the worry about a shutdown, economists are far more concerned about a potential default on the federal debt. The Treasury Department has warned that it will have only about $30 billion in cash on hand by the middle of next month, and estimates are that it will run out of money by the end of the month.

Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits and active-duty military pay could be delayed two weeks, according to estimates. Such delays would not only disrupt lives but also cause an economic contraction because that money often flows directly into the economy through grocery shopping, car sales and staple purchases.

Until recent weeks, many economists and investors have seen the prospect of a debt default as unthinkable because so many people around the world rely on the safety of U.S. Treasury bonds. But people close to the process now say it is all too possible.

“This Congress is dysfunctional, and I can no longer predict what it’s going to do,” said Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.). “I can’t tell you for sure we’ll avoid a debt default. That’s mind-blowing.”

Steve Bell, a former senior Republican budget staffer and a top analyst with the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the issues surrounding the congressional battles this fall leave little room for error.

“What is different this time . . . is going to be the direct conflation of the debt ceiling and continuing resolution for appropriations,” he said. “That’s when the stakes are highest.”

Sorry for your loss. Too many fine men on both sides were killed and maimed to entertain old men playing Napoleon on their battle boards.Dante wrote of a special place in Hell for such beasts - if myth were only truth.

I wait with bated breath, anticipating the desecration of the memories of the lost by a rant on Israel.

Why do YOU invite the discussion of that Middle Eastern regime, then whine when the discussion is engaged?

When the discussion is of tyrants, dictators and despots and their public behavior, their actions, why would their alliances with Israel not be a valid point in the discussion?

Why when the tyrants alliance with Israel are mentioned do you protest?

Why would anyone expect a pass be given to an Israeli regime of Middle Eastern misogynists, especially when the discussion is of systematic discrimination against women by another member of the Israelis de facto alliance of Middle Eastern regimes?

The most interesting thing about Obamacare is that, being, basically, a "transfer" program, it will be a stimulus to the overall economy; But, due to the complexity, and indirect nature of the program, it's very hard to predict in advance just how much of a boost it will be.

You poor, stupid sap, you probably don't realize that Obamacare will be unaffected by the government shutdown.

Obamacare won't be affected until your Medicare is affected. You might want to rethink your strategy (although, I'm not sure how you would rethink something that wasn't "thought out" in the first place.

Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation, predicted a “death spiral” in which the rates rise over the next several years, leading healthy people to drop their coverage while “very sick” people “stay in until the very last drop,” forcing rates up even more.“The death spiral is well known in health insurance,” he said.Edmund Haislmaier, who studies health-care policy for The Heritage Foundation, said some medical providers will refuse to accept ObamaCare, noting four of the insurers offering policies in New York specialize in Medicaid plans.“You’re going to have very limited access to doctors and hospitals,” he said.

It took nine comments but it happened as predicted: Israel came into play. Things should start going downhill very soon. In the interest of efficiency, why not have Israel as the topic of every thread? :-)

Why don't YOU tell US why we should not learn from the Israeli experiences, in health care?

Why the Israeli should have US funded Universal Health Care System...but the US should not even subsidize any middle aged or young resident...but subsidize all of the elderly, regardless of their health or wealth.

If the English system is a failure, and the Israeli system is a success, why would we not want to talk of and emulate the success rather than dwell on the failure.You can't see the forest, for the trees.

Just stay a way from Health Care, Defense Spending, Welfare - to include individual, corporate or foreign aid to dependent countries.

Do not mention religion..

We could go back to Africa.But that shopping mall in Kenya, was owned by Israeli interests.The discussion would then expand to hegemonic power projection, economic and military.Some would claim that Iran was hegemonic, the comparison would be drawn to Israel ...

The true hegemonic power would be revealed.The shopping mall in Kenya, not owned by Iranians.FOX News, not owned by IraniansThe US Fifth and Sixth Fleets, not owned by Iranians

Lubricated by US taxpayer dollars that go to Israel each year, the Israeli regime has in turn been flogging arms to Burma’s military junta, responsible for shooting Buddhist monks and foreign journalists in pro-democracy marches in the past week.

Amid the chorus of condemnations and sanctions from Bush, Brown and others, no corresponding condemnation is issued about how these peacefully demonstrating Buddhist monks are being murdered with Israeli arms — why shouldn’t sanctions properly be raised to apply to the military regime-supporting arms pusher?

An Israeli mercenary convicted by Colombia for training paramilitary squads linked to drug trafficking in the 1980s won an appeal against extradition from Russia, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said on Wednesday.

Gal Yair Klein, born in 1943, was tried in absentia in 2001 for training the "death squads" which were used by Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha and Pablo Escobar, leaders of the notorious Medellin drug cartel, to wage war against the Colombian state in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Yair Klein also spent 16 months in a Sierra Leone jail between 1999 and 2000, charged with smuggling arms for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) guerrilla.

A former commando from the Israeli army, Yair Klein was arrested in Russia in 2007 on the basis of an Interpol warrant and is still being detained in Moscow. He is resisting extradition, claiming he life would be in danger if he was sent to Colombia.

Yair Klein based this claim by pointing out that the then vice president of Colombia, Humberto De la Calle Lombana, greeted news of his arrest by saying that "it should be ensured that this gentleman rots in jail for his participation in the training of armed groups."

Way back when, people had lots of children, and it made sense: The little darlings were put at hard labor in the fields or factories, each creating a small surplus. Since about half of all children died before the age of five, the more the better, then.In modern times, the productivity and corresponding wealth brought about through mechanization has changed things dramatically: all the developed countries have indigenous birthrates below the replacement level. Children, like pets, may be desirable within reason, but generally they carry a high cost.Well, not quite: There is Mississippi. With ingenuity of the first order, Mississippians have found a way to have cake and eat it too. On any given day, 60% of Mississippi’s teenaged girls are pregnant (the highest rate in the nation). And each and every one of those delivered little bundles of joy comes with a barcode, payable by Uncle Sam. You see, for each dollar of federal tax paid by Mississippi’s under- employed economy, Uncle Sam returns over two dollars to the state.Mississippi has many other firsts going its way. It has the lowest mean income, poorest personal health, highest rate of illiteracy, and poorest school systems of any of the 50 states, to list but a few.Given this, one might think a conscientious guy, whose heart goes out to the struggling masses, could keep himself busy working for the betterment of his own state rather than gnashing his teeth on sour grapes picking on Israel. At least, one would think. Then again, by some metrics, Mississippi is considered the most bigoted state in the union. Hmm…

Unlike Q, desert rat does not see that list of foreign policy successes and credit it to a "Lucky" Barack Obama.

That is just foolishness.

While like Q, desert rat thinks that the policy goals of the United States are misguided and the tactics used to achieve this list of success, ill advised for long term stability.

As the experiences of the 19th and 20th century Europeon Hegemony illustrate.Kenya has never been secure from the forces of independence, deployed by Nationalists against the International Hegemony that seeks to exploit their country's resources, to the profit of foreign profiteers.

Back to Smedley Butler ...

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street.

The record of racketeering is long.

I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

The object of the attention of hegemony has shifted from the Americas.

The civil wars and genocides that the Triumvirate Axis of Abraham were complicit in, during the 1980's have secured that portion of the empire for the present time. Even the radical revolutionaries of that era, the Noriega's of Nicaragua, are toeing the line, today. Cuba, no longer exports terror and revolution, it merely acts as a transit stop for the cocaine heading north from Colombia to the marketplace in North America.

Now the Triumvirate Axis of Abraham is focused on Iranian oil and the profits available from limiting Iranian inventory from the global marketplace. Having had great success in Libya, with over 1 million barrels a day taken out of the supply chain, without any loss of Triumvirate lives in the disposal of Colonel Q.

No troops on the ground, no occupation ofLibya's geographic territory.1 million barrels of Libyan crude are off the market each and every day, those sales transferred to the Wahhabi suppliers. Muslim members of the Triumvirate Axis of Abraham

The cry baby above does not want to admit that he has been manipulated.

Now that he has been sleeping with israelis, he is shocked to learn he has been traded to the bed of a camel herding Muslim of Saudi Arabia. Passed around like two dollar whore, he is not proud of it, butt took it for the cause.

So now he he has to go into denial, he can't say he was drunk, he was in the Muslim's tent, no beer allowed.

No possible refutation of the facts, truth and those witnesses make that impossible.All that is left for Anonymous, just plain old fashion juvenile denial.

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Local police say a middle-aged couple in central Ukraine was run over by a switcher locomotive while having sex on the tracks. According to the country's Interior Ministry, the woman died at the location while the man was hospitalized after losing both his legs.

The victims' names were not released, but it was reported that the man was 41 and the woman appeared to by thirtysomething.

The ministry cited the surviving victim, who said that he and his girlfriend “failed to overcome their natural passion when walking home… and wanted to experience an extreme sensation near the railroad tracks.”

This is the AIPAC representative on this blog. It is a fair representation about the quality of his comments. I get sick of his moronic epithets and will post this so he doesn’t place the Star of David on his forehead as he martyrs himself:

What is "Occupation"Mon Sep 30, 02:06:00 PM EDTAye But in Deuceland there are standards.

At least for the Jews. Know their place. Do not talk back. Do not call the appeasing cowards "appeasing cowards" the appeasing cowards (with mullah'd dick breath" will get pissy

Delete

The only method that I have to control the wretched fool is to delete his peep hole in the toilet stall scribblings.

The man’s offending remarks usually include various references to homosexual sex acts. He does seem to control himself at times but when he goes off the rails his rants include reference to male fellatio and anal sex. It is constantly on his mind when he gets agitated and disturbed. To his credit he does not refer to bestiality as often as his graphic descriptions of male on male felattio.

Hardly. An individualized perception of reality is in the mind of the beholder. Try, "WHY Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes..." (1999). Belsky and Gilovich; or "THINKING, FAST AND SLOW" (2011), Kahneman (Nobel Prize, behavioral economics)

Gollum had been deformed and twisted in both body and mind by the corruption of the Ring. His chief desire was to possess the Ring that had enslaved him, and he pursued it for many years

The pursuit of that which does not exist, searching for that which never was ...

A lot like quot's search for those that would destroy the dream of a democratic secular state of Israel in a portion of Palestine and replace it with a theocratic sectarian and militarized society that abuses the liberty and freedom of its polygot of residents.Searching for years, all the while refusing to look in a mirror.

He was looking for it here, because here amongst us, there is light.Out there, where he become lost, twisted in body and mind ...There is only darkness.

He tried to bring the darkness with him, to corrupt those that dwell in the light ...He was accepted, allowed entrance through the gate, as all that seek sanctuary are.

But he was corrupted by the Ring, to the core of his being. He had abandoned the creed of freemen. That all are created equally, That all retain their inalienable rights..And that no majority has the right to impose tyranny upon a minority and still walk amongst Freemen themselves.

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.".When his brand of tyranny was rejected by our society, he wanted to close the society down. His demands of changing the name of the forum, his demands for closing our forum, his demands of blacklisting its members,

They have not gone like he planned.Guess he's just not a "Lucky" ...

Not as "Lucky" as his rivals, to say the least.

A lack of preparation, perhaps.Perhaps he is just to suffer Lott's fate.Not abandoned by his god, but forsaken by him ...... on a bet with the Devil.

As the budget histrionics continue, both parties are slyly doing what Congress does best—spend more money. We reported last week that the GOP House has already agreed with Senate Democrats to raise spending in 2014 by $19 billion over the Budget Control Act caps—to $986 billion from $967 billion.

...

"We're almost $36 billion over the caps," says GOP Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a rare spending whistleblower. Too bad no one is listening, least of all the Republicans who are beating their chests over a "defund ObamaCare" fight they have no chance to win.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.